completely unfair

i'm not even sure it should be legal to have this view. unless, of course, it was my view.

via sweetiepie

they're here!

the professional photo photos are done! allison took 469 pictures. crazy. i can't post any here because of copyrighting, but you can view a slideshow of some of them. they're great! allison is a great photographer & great to work with, btw. we get 4x6s of all of them which we're going to pick up this week. then we're going to try to pick some to get bigger prints of...that decision is going to be very very hard....

get a room!

after a short postponement, danny and i had our engagement pictures taken a couple weeks ago. my favorite part about havint these taken was the fact that i left work early so i could come home to take a shower, do my hair, do my makeup, etc....all of which probably took about 2 hours, and guess how long it took to actually take the pictures? 20 minutes. yeah. oh well.

allison was great. we're really happy with her and the results. i'm definitely pleased with her make-nicole's-skin-look-flawless skills. :) there is a really cool area behind her studio where we took the pictures. there is a brick wall that i am totally in love with. i understand if you think it's slightly odd to fall in love with a wall, but once you see it, i think you'll understand. if not, then i don't care...i still love you, wall.

i'm not supposed to post the pictures, so follow this link to view them. the password is "engagement."

which ones do you like?

photo session scheduled

last week i finally got around to setting up our engagement photo session with our photographer, allison jansen. we decided to have engagement pictures done because danny & i really don't have that many pictures together. most of the time i'm the one with the camera, so i have tons of pictures of danny and scenery. pictures of both of us, however, are hard to come by. it's also a great way to get to know allison, for her to get to know us, and so we'll be more comfortable with our wedding pictures.

i was looking through photos from allison's past engagement sessions and thought i'd share some of my favorites. i really like the ones that are in an urban setting. i think that's what we'll go for with our engagement pics since our wedding pictures will be full of nature.

(click to enlarge)

and the wedding planning has begun

i can't believe we've already been engaged for 3 months now. even though time has passed, it still feels new, and in my mind i perpetually have a year before the wedding to plan...so it freaked me out a little when i got my email from theknot.com that told me i had 9 months to go...uh oh...

we have gotten a few major things off the list:

1. we have a date! september 13, 2008. that's pretty huge. we knew we wanted september...it was the month we started dating & the month we got engaged AND hopefully it will have started to cool off a bit and won't be 105 degrees in alabama. also, the 13th of june is danny's birthday, so i'm hoping that sharing the same number (13) will make it easy for him to remember.
2. we have a venue! monte sano lodge. it's in huntsville on top of the "mountain" where we go mountain biking. i think it really fits us. we're going to have both the ceremony and the reception there. the ceremony will be outside, and if it rains, there's space to have it inside. for the reception, i'm picturing it very open with people flowing inside and outside. the view from the bluff behind the lodge - which will be the backdrop for the ceremony - is gorgeous.
3. we have a photographer! allison jansen. i fell in love with her work long before we got engaged. i think she takes great pictures. she's a bit pricey, but i think she's worth it & after meeting with her, danny thought so too. her time at the wedding is unlimited, so she'll be with us all day. we're also going to do some engagement pictures with her at some point before the wedding.
4. we have maids & men! nat, yamini, amanda, scott, dave, & jimmy. danny and i each have 3 people standing with us, but what makes it really special is that they really cross both sides. the 3 men standing next to danny are just as much my best men & the ladies standing next to me are just as much danny's maids of honor. they are all 6 our best friends.
5. we have an officiant! mr. terry wayne. it was important to us that we have a relationship with whoever it was officiating over the wedding ceremony. i didn't want some random person that i had never met before playing such an important role in the wedding. wayne was really the obvious choice.

wow, that list made me feel some what accomplished. 5 things is pretty good, right? the next big thing on the list is finding a caterer.yamini and i are going to go to a bridal fair on saturday, so hopefully, we'll meet some potential candidates.